The House Finance Committee voted (8 to 3) along party lines this morning to close a loophole in Washington’s estate tax that was created by a Supreme Court ruling in the Bracken case last year. Lawmakers say the ruling left married couples’ estates untaxed, while single persons’ estates would be subject to the tax on estates valued at more than $2 million.

House Bill 2064 now goes to the House floor for a vote on Thursday – having to go through the process a second time because it did not pass the Senate in …

Tim Eyman says he’s filing a new initiative that, among other things, would limit future tax increases to one year. UPDATE: Monday he wasn’t saying when he’ll file – this year or next. Today, Eyman says he is filing it at 11 a.m. tomorrow, April 24.

The move is in part a reaction to the state Supreme Court throwing out his Initiative 960 which set a two-thirds vote requirement for Legislature-imposed tax increases into law.

Even before losing that case by a solid 6-to-3 margin in court, he’s since been agitating for a constitutional amendment to lock in that higher …

A series of proposals to lock Washington’s two-thirds tax-vote law into the state Constitution got a hearing in a Senate committee this morning. Advocates for better funding of public schools, universities and health programs were squared off against business groups and anti-tax advocates.

You can watch TVW’s full coverage of the hearing here, starting at about the 1:07:40 mark.

None of the proposals is expected to pass the Legislature this year. Rep. Larry Springer, D-Kirkland, told the Association of Washington Business on Wednesday there is not enough…

In another busy day for election-related bills in Olympia, a liberal Seattle senator’s proposal to urge Congress to authorize a U.S. constitutional amendment got a hearing Tuesday in the state Senate Government Operations Committee. Most who spoke were urging passage of Senate Joint Memorial 8002, which is Sen. Adam Kline‘s long-shot bid to get Congress to start a years-long process that could close a loophole in U.S. campaign finance law by sending a constitutional amendment out to the states.

It issue is the 2010 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case known as Citizens United, which …

]]>http://blog.thenewstribune.com/politicsblog/2013/02/05/bill-to-protest-citizens-uniteds-money-flood-in-federal-campaigns-gets-favorable-testimony/feed/0Report: Washington still has least-fair tax system in country; hits the poor six times harder than the wealthyhttp://blog.thenewstribune.com/politicsblog/2013/01/30/report-washington-still-has-least-fair-tax-system-in-country-hits-the-poor-six-times-harder-than-the-wealthy/
http://blog.thenewstribune.com/politicsblog/2013/01/30/report-washington-still-has-least-fair-tax-system-in-country-hits-the-poor-six-times-harder-than-the-wealthy/#commentsWed, 30 Jan 2013 23:25:06 +0000http://blog.thenewstribune.com/politicsblog/?p=29The beauty of a tax system is always in the eye of a beholder, and some business rankings say Washington state’s business climate is good partly because of its lack of an income tax. But a report by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy rates Washington state’s system as the worst in the country in terms of how much harder it hits the poor and middle-class than the rich. Lack of an income tax is a clear factor.

ITEP, based in Washington, D.C., found that all states’ tax systems are actually weighted in favor …